Lesotho Nights

The following blog post was written on the evening of 3 July 2008. Due to technological restrictions it will be posted at a later date. Internet connection is dial-up, therefore images will be attached upon returning to South Africa during the weekend of 11-12 July. Sorry! I have the pictures picked out and will post as soon as I can!

It is winter in Lesotho. This means that, although it is very pleasant during the day when the sun it out, it get quite cold at night. In addition, homes in Lesotho do not have central heating. However, we do have electric blankets to keep us toasty in bed and most of us wear our winter hats or pull the blankets over our heads when falling to sleep. It is a little painful if you have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, you step quickly—however, all of us (but poor Doug) have bathrooms in our rooms. So we can shower (it is strange to feel the hot water hit part of your body while the other part of your body shivers a little) easily.

A “quirk” is the load-shedding. This means that there are blackouts, usually in the morning in Roma…so when you wake up your electric blanket doesn’t work either.

Overall, though, it works out great. You start off with a lot of layers in the morning, take a few off at the day goes on, and the start adding them back on later in the day.

At night we pile into the White House (one of the buildings) and sit around the file talking, it is a lot like camp.